A variety of bucket designs for heavy equipment such as skid steers and loaders are known in the art. For example U.S. Pat. No. 8,875,422 to Tanaka et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 8,707,589 to Hilton; U.S. Pat. No. 8,695,240 to Mills et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 8,240,070 to Phillips et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 7,992,329 to Horton; U.S. Pat. No. 7,832,128 to Doucette et al. and U.S. Patent Application Pub. Nos. 2014/0331528 to Tanaka et al. and 2014/0230293 to Lunn et al. all disclose various buckets.
The storage or shipping of buckets typically requires significant space. When such buckets are manufactured and shipped, multiple shipping containers, flat-bed trucks or trailers may be necessary for transportation depending on the number of buckets.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,374,520 to Westendorf et al. discloses a bucket providing a tapered floor and a tapered back wall allowing a nested stacking of buckets. In the Westendorf System, the buckets are most efficiently stacked in an alternating manner. But such alternate stacking is time intensive and requires significant space to maneuver the buckets into position.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved stackable bucket that may be stacked quickly.
These and other objects of the invention will be better understood by reference to the detailed description of the preferred embodiment which follows. Note that the objects referred to above are statements of what motivated the invention rather than promises. Not all of the objects are necessarily met by all embodiments of the invention described below or by the invention defined by each of the claims.